Videographer: Freddie Gray was folded like 'origami'

Kevin Moore, a Gilmor Homes resident, was asleep in his house when he heard a police taser. He went outside and recorded video of Freddie Gray as he was taken into custody by Baltimore police. (Catherine Rentz/Baltimore Sun video)

Kevin Moore, a Gilmor Homes resident, was asleep in his house when he heard a police taser. He went outside and recorded video of Freddie Gray as he was taken into custody by Baltimore police. (Catherine Rentz/Baltimore Sun video)

Kevin Moore was asleep in his home the morning of April 12, when his uncle yelled to him: "The police are tazing Freddie."

Moore, 28, ran out of his home in the same Gilmor Homes complex where Freddie Gray was arrested and sprinted across the street to get a view of what was happening.

"Once I got around to see where Freddie was, I instantly started recording," Moore said.

Moore shot one of the two cell phone videos of the Gray arrest that morning that have since ignited protests and raised questions about whether the police arrested him "without force or incident as cited in an officer's report.

Moore said he found his friend handcuffed, "screaming for his life," and planted face down on the ground with one Baltimore bicycle police officer's knee on his neck and the other bicycle officer bending his legs backward so that Gray's heels were in his back .

Freddie Gray, 25, died on April 19, a week after he was injured while being arrested by Baltimore police. Video of the arrest surfaced and protests broke out, beginning outside the police station Gray was brought to and spreading around Baltimore, and, eventually, to other cities. On April 27,...

"They had him folded up like he was a crab or a piece of origami. He was all bent up," Moore said.

"He said 'I can't breathe. I need a pump,' and they ignored him," Moore said. Gray had asthma and Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez confirmed at a press conference on Monday that Gray asked for an inhaler, but police did not have one at the scene.

Moore said, "The police yelled 'stop resisting,' but there was no resistance. He couldn't move."

Moore thought he heard a Taser go off, but Rodriguez said that while one officer drew his Taser, it was not used on Gray.

A bystander recorded the arrest of Freddie Gray on his phone on April 12, 2015. (Edited for strong language)

A bystander recorded the arrest of Freddie Gray on his phone on April 12, 2015. (Edited for strong language)

When police went to pick Gray off the ground, Moore said his friend had limp legs. His cell phone video shows police carrying Gray to the van, his legs dragging behind him. Gray appears to briefly stand on one leg just before entering the van.

After police loaded him into the van on Presbury Street and drove off, they stopped one block away at Mount and Baker streets to re-restrain Gray with leg irons. Moore said he heard Gray screaming again at that time and raced down the block to get more footage, but by that time, a crowd of police had surrounded the van.

"I didn't see any movement," Moore said. "I saw his body but he wasn't moving."

Moore wonders if Gray could have been paralyzed then, and is convinced police injured Gray.

"He didn't put himself in a coma. He didn't fracture or crack three of his own vertebrae," Moore said. "He didn't sever his own spine."

Moore and several residents living near the scene of Gray's arrest were highly skeptical that none of the eight cameras along the streets where Gray was apprehended and re-restrained had footage of the arrest.

"If I were to commit a crime they would have every angle," he said. "It doesn't make any sense that these cameras work, but when the police do something, they don't."

Rodriguez said that only one camera captured any of the events. He showed what they had at the press conference and it revealed neither the full arrest, nor the subsequent restraining.

However, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday the police department is now looking for additional videos of the incident from police cameras.

"We're reviewing the cameras in the area to find out if there's any visual evidence that would be helpful to the investigation. As we find it, and as we can release it, we will immediately do that," she said.

As for his footage, Moore said he gave his cell phone video to everyone who requested it and didn't ask for any money.

"I'm tired of the police killing us and getting away with it," Moore said.

He said he also gave the video and spoke to two detectives within the Baltimore Police Department's Office of Internal Oversight.

"Black lives matter. Enough is enough," he said. "You wonder why we dislike the police or are aggressive toward the police, this is why. Prime example, right here."